


monuments left unbuilt

by soundthebells (kosy)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Funerals, Gen, Martin-centric, Prompt Fill, post-season 3, pre-season 4, this one's just sad folks! there's not much else to say!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23454697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/soundthebells
Summary: At the end of the day, there seem to be more people to mourn than there are mourners.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & The Archives Staff, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, background Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims - Relationship
Comments: 11
Kudos: 62





	monuments left unbuilt

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy the read! <3

They don’t hold a funeral for Daisy, not a proper one. Basira says she’d hate it anyway, the pomp and circumstance. Privately, Martin’s pretty sure it’s just that nobody would come. It’s hard to imagine people wanting to be around someone like her, something like _that._ But then again, it’s hard for Martin to imagine much of anything at all. His mind feels disjointed, jagged-edged, numb.

(They’d done a funeral for Tim. Christ, that had been horrible—getting in touch with his mother and father, still torn up from the disappearance of their youngest child, now torn up anew. Two sons gone in a matter of years without so much as a body to bury. Martin ends up calling them every night for a week straight as everything is set in order. Tim had always said he wanted to be cremated after he died, but Martin supposes he more or less beat them to it. He didn’t say that aloud but he thought about it as he helped Valerie Stoker pick out the headstone over the phone, and he’d had to bite his fingers not to laugh at the awfulness of the thought, and then he’d had to squeeze his eyes shut tight not to cry. It became obvious after that that there weren’t very many people to invite after all: immediate family, old friends from uni or his publishing gig he’d fallen out of touch with after Danny, Institute staff who remembered what he was like before everything started to break. Valerie asks him to write a speech for the service. Pleads, even. He caves after she asks twice; of course he does. Martin stays at his desk in the Archives for eight hours staring at a blank Word document on his laptop. What remains to be said about Timothy Stoker? _He’s gone, and I’m still here, and it makes me want to scream._ He deletes that and starts over. Writes something about a man who is jovial and clever and kind. Something about being lucky and proud to have known him. 

It’s not a lie, but it’s not a very good speech either.) 

They don’t hold a funeral for Daisy, but they go out drinking with her in mind a week or two after it becomes obvious she’s not coming back, didn’t just skip out and lay low for a while. Basira waxes poetic in her straight-faced dry way about their years on the force together. Martin can sort of see it in his mind’s eye when she talks about it, that flash of wild surety in her eyes, the openmouthed grin as she chases some petty criminal on foot. He can almost love her like this, in the third person, but the image is dull and inextricably tainted with the memory of a long, thin scar healed over vulnerable skin just a little too quickly to be natural. They drink for Tim, too, when it’s clear that neither Melanie nor Martin have much to say about Daisy Tonner. Martin tries to talk about him, really he does, but what do you say? What do you say about a man who crumbled as you watched and threw paper airplanes at you across the research bullpen like he was ten rather than pushing forty and was eaten alive by worms but somehow came back smiling and ate mint chocolate chip ice cream on your birthday and told you to take care of yourself? He tries to talk about him but just ends up fumbling the little glass of whiskey in shaking hands. He falls silent. There isn't any poetry left in his head, no marble statues or daybreak. There aren't any words left at all. Melanie and Basira try to fill in the silence, but, God, it’s so hard to mourn someone you only ever knew at their worst. Tim, jagged and angry. Tim, laughing at Martin’s karaoke performance so hard he starts crying into Sasha’s blouse. Sasha, whose face blurs away to nothing in his head.

He lets out a long, shuddering breath. When did his life become an endless string of deaths he can’t even mourn? 

They stay out late that night. Not because they’re enjoying themselves. Not even because it’s bringing them any sense of comfort or camaraderie. Just because it seems there is nothing else left for them to do. 

Martin goes to the hospital three nights a week as soon as he gets off work, just as the sun starts its slow slip away behind building and leaves the world grayish-purple. It’s a bit of a walk to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, but it’s not as if he has anywhere to be anymore. Jon has his own room, a tiny, cramped little space. Just because it’s hard to explain to visitors why they’re keeping a dead man in a hospital bed, but Martin appreciates the privacy. He doesn’t cry as much as he used to, though. Mostly he just sits there, holding a cold, cold hand, and he tries to write eulogies. _He’s gone now. He was here, and I loved him more than I thought I was able to love anything. He’s gone, and I still do._

None of them taste right in Martin’s mouth. He’d like to think that means something.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!! this was prompt fill for @cursed-lights on tumblr: "you / mourn / breath / dusk" which i'm just now realizing were probably supposed to be separate prompts but whoops it's one thing now! you can find me on tumblr [@boneroutes](https://boneroutes.tumblr.com), where i'm still taking writing/art prompts (almost always am, to be honest). if you feel inclined, please leave a comment/kudos, they really are a joy to receive <3 thank you all again!


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